Virginia Life & Health Insurance Exam 2026

What This License Is

This route gives you two Virginia lines of authority — Life and Annuities, and Health — from one exam. Prometric Series 11-01 is the combined form, and it costs the same $35 as either standalone exam. Sitting 11-05 and 11-06 separately costs $70 and two afternoons; sitting 11-01 costs $35 and one.

The saving is real but it is not total, and the place people miscount is the application. Virginia's $15 processing fee is charged per line of authority, not per application — so two lines cost $30 however you earned them. One exam fee, two line fees.

Neither line requires pre-licensing education. Virginia imposes a pre-licensing course only on Title agents, at 16 classroom hours before they may even register. For Life, Annuities and Health there is nothing to complete, no certificate to carry and no provider to pay.

The regulator is the Bureau of Insurance, which sits inside the State Corporation Commission — a constitutional body that is also a court of record, whose three members are elected by joint vote of both houses of the General Assembly to staggered six-year terms. The Commissioner of Insurance is the employee the Commission places at the head of the Bureau (Va. Code § 12.1-16), so the office is neither elected nor gubernatorially appointed. Virginia's statutes call you an agent; § 38.2-1800 makes "producer" a synonym.

One trade-off to weigh before you book, because it is not obvious. The combined exam weights Virginia regulation at 10%; the standalone exams weight it at 17%. That sounds like an argument for 11-01 and is not quite one — the raw counts are similar (14 regulation questions on the 140-question combined form, 15 on each 90-question standalone). What 11-01 really buys you is breadth: 140 scored questions spanning both lines in 150 minutes, where a standalone candidate gets 90 questions in 120. If your knowledge is uneven across life and health, the combined form gives the weak side more places to hurt you.

Exam Options & Format

Series 11-01, Virginia Life, Annuities, and Health Insurance — 140 scored questions plus 10 unscored pretest items, 150 in all, 2 hours 30 minutes, $35. Pretest items "will not be counted for or against you in the final examination score."

The 11-01 content outline, in the Bureau's weightings: Insurance Regulation 10% (14 questions) · General Insurance 6% (8) · Life Basics 6% (8) · Life Policies 10% (14) · Life Provisions, Options and Riders 11% (16) · Annuities 6% (8) · Federal Tax, Life and Annuity 2% (3) · Qualified Plans 2% (3) · Health Basics 6% (8) · Individual Health Insurance Policy General Provisions 11% (16) — Prometric's heading for what the statutes call individual accident and sickness — · Disability Income 5% (7) · Medical Plans 6% (8) · Group Health 5% (7) · Dental 1% (2) · Seniors and Special Needs 11% (15) · Federal Tax, Health 2% (3).

Two domains carry 16 and 15 questions respectively — individual health insurance policy general provisions, which is § 38.2-3503 almost end to end, and seniors and special needs, which is Medicare, Medicare supplement and long-term care. Between them they are more of this exam than life policies and life provisions combined. Candidates who came to this license for the life side consistently underestimate that.

Virginia embeds its law rather than testing it separately — one form, one timer, one score, no state section. Your 150 minutes covers 150 items — 60 seconds each, which is comfortable but not generous across two subject areas.

For the substantive Virginia law behind each half of this exam, the standalone guides go deeper than a combined page can: the Life & Annuities guide covers the 31-day grace period, the 6% reinstatement interest ceiling and the three-policy-year wait for a policy loan; the Health guide covers the tiered accident-and-sickness grace period, the 45-day reinstatement rule and Virginia's continuation statute. Read both.

Most Tested Topics on the Virginia Life, Annuities & Health Exam

The material that belongs to this exam rather than to either half of it is the regulatory scaffolding — who backstops an insolvent insurer, and what your relationship with a carrier actually is. Both areas contain a Virginia answer that contradicts what national prep teaches, and both sit inside the Insurance Regulation domain that every Virginia form loads heavily. From the TESTivity Virginia regulations curriculum, statute-verified:

Start with the aggregate cap, because it is the best-designed trap in Virginia's guaranty law. Every individual limit in that table matches the NAIC model exactly — $300,000 death benefit, $100,000 cash surrender, $250,000 annuity, the $100,000/$300,000/$300,000/$500,000 accident-and-sickness tiers. A candidate who studied the model act nationally will get all of them right, gain confidence, and then answer $300,000 when asked about the aggregate per one life. Virginia's is $350,000. The one deviation is hidden inside a run of matches, which is exactly why it earns a question.

The second half of that table inverts a rule most candidates hold as absolute. National prep teaches, near-universally, that a producer may not solicit on behalf of an insurer until appointed. Virginia says the opposite in plain statutory text: a licensed agent may sell and solicit for an insurer that has not appointed them, and the insurer then has 30 calendar days from the execution of the first application to reject it or file the appointment. The obligation runs to the carrier, not to you. What you may not do is keep selling after being notified the appointment is invalid.

Read the appointment clocks as a set, because they are all different, all short, and they live in two adjacent sections. Thirty calendar days for the insurer to reject your first application or file the appointment (§ 38.2-1833). Five business days for the insurer to tell you an appointment has been found invalid (§ 38.2-1833(A)(3)). Five calendar days for the insurer to tell you it has terminated you, and no later than 10 calendar days after that notice is sent for you to stop selling (§ 38.2-1834). And June 30 as the annual cutoff that decides whether a terminated appointment still costs the carrier a renewal fee. Business days in one place and calendar days in the other is exactly the sort of distinction an item writer builds a question on. On the fee amount itself, the statute sets a band of not less than $7 nor more than $25 and the prescribed figure is not published on any reachable Bureau, NIPR or Sircon page — so we give you the band and no number.

Finally, the temporary license carries a restriction worth remembering because so few states impose it, and it is worth stating precisely: Virginia allows one temporary Life & Health licence and one temporary Property & Casualty licence in a lifetime. Not one per line of authority — the statute groups the lines into two sides and gives you one of each, ever. A temporary license is issued to keep a book of business alive after a death, a disability or a sale — 180 days, no exam — and Virginia will not do it for you twice on the same side.

Exam Day at a Virginia Test Center

More Virginia candidates lose a $35 fee to the check-in desk than to the exam. None of what follows is difficult; all of it is enforced.

Arrive at least 30 minutes before your appointment. The bulletin's instruction, and it is arithmetic rather than politeness — check-in means identity verification, a signature, storage of your belongings and a walk to a seat, and none of it comes out of the centre's schedule. A candidate who arrives on the hour is late.

Bring two forms of identification. The primary must be government-issued, unexpired, and bear both a current photograph and a signature — a driver's license, a state ID card or a military ID. The secondary must bear a signature and be unexpired; it does not need a photo.

Then check the names. The bulletin requires that the ID name "exactly match the name used to register for the examination (including designations such as 'Jr.' and 'III')." That parenthesis is there because it happens. If your driver's license says "Robert Hale Jr." then register as Robert Hale Jr. — not Robert Hale, not Bob Hale. A newly married candidate whose ID and registration disagree has the same problem. Fix it at registration, days ahead, not at the desk.

Leave everything else in the car. The prohibited list, verbatim in substance: outerwear, hats, food, drinks, purses, bags or briefcases, notebooks, watches, cell phones, electronic devices, and wearable technology. Separately: "written notes, published materials and other testing aids are strictly prohibited," "weapons are not allowed," and "electronic equipment — cameras, tape recorders, cell phones, PDAs, pagers, etc. — is not permitted."

Two of those catch experienced professionals. A watch is an electronic device for this purpose — a mechanical one is no better received, and the exam software shows you the time anyway. And wearable technology covers the fitness band you genuinely forgot you were wearing. Take both off in the car park.

What you may have at the desk is a short list: soft ear plugs with no wires or cords attached, and tissues supplied by the centre. That is all.

Calculators. We are going to be straight about this, because prep sites are not. The current bulletin contains no calculator policy at all — the word does not appear anywhere in it. What the bulletin does say is that outside electronic devices are prohibited, which forecloses bringing your own. Whether an on-screen calculator is provided is not documented, so plan to work the arithmetic on the whiteboard the centre supplies and treat anything else as a bonus.

Changing your mind. Reschedule or cancel at least 24 hours before the appointment and there is no charge to move within the same testing window. "If you change or cancel your appointment without proper notice, you will forfeit your examination fee(s)." No-shows forfeit likewise.

When you finish, the score appears on screen immediately and an emailed report follows with the percentage correct in each major section. The Personal Lines guide covers score reports, retake rules and the 183-day clock that starts the moment you pass.

Fingerprinting, and the Fact Most Study Material Still Gets Wrong

Virginia fingerprints resident applicants. If you have read anywhere that it does not, that source is more than five years out of date and you should distrust the rest of it too.

The requirement took effect January 1, 2021. Va. Code § 38.2-1819: "Each individual who is a resident of the Commonwealth shall, at the time of applying for a new license, be fingerprinted in a form and manner prescribed by the Commission." The prints and your personal descriptive information are forwarded through the Central Criminal Records Exchange to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for a criminal history record check.

The vendor is Fieldprint, using live scan technology — the Prometric bulletin names it. Live scan means electronic capture at a Fieldprint site; an ink card taken at a police station is not the process Virginia is running, and submitting one is a way to lose weeks.

You pay. § 38.2-1819 assigns the cost of fingerprinting and the criminal history record check to the applicant expressly. The Bureau does not publish the amount, and Fieldprint's Virginia insurance fee is not printed in any primary source we can reach — the SCC's own Fingerprint Process FAQ is a robots-blocked PDF. So we are not going to print a figure. Ask Fieldprint when you schedule; budget for a modest vendor fee on top of your $35 exam and $15-per-line application.

Two clocks govern your prints, and they are different lengths.

Ninety days at the front. Prints must be no more than 90 days old when the application is submitted. Print too early and the application will not accept them.

Twelve months at the back. Once on file with the Bureau, fingerprints are valid for one year — an applicant who was printed within the previous 12 months is not reprinted. That matters if you are adding a line, or if a first application closed and you are refiling.

Where fingerprinting sits in the sequence. Virginia does not require a pre-exam application for standard lines, so the order that works is: get printed → sit the exam → apply through Sircon or NIPR with the prints already on file. Getting printed first is what keeps the 90-day window and the 183-day score-validity window from colliding, and it removes the commonest cause of a stalled Virginia application.

A second document, and an honest caveat. The SCC's applying page also references a Criminal History Record Report from the Virginia State Police, which must be less than 90 days old. It appears alongside the Fieldprint live-scan submission rather than instead of it. Exactly how the two interact is not cleanly documented in any primary source we can reach, and we are not going to guess at a sequence and have you rely on it. Follow the document checklist on the SCC applying page as it stands on the day you apply, and if anything is ambiguous, ask the Bureau before you file rather than after.

Service codes. Many states publish a fingerprint service or ORI code that you quote when booking. Virginia's is not printed in the Prometric bulletin or on any reachable SCC page, so this guide links the SCC applying page rather than printing a code that might route your prints to the wrong agency. Schedule through the link the Bureau gives you on the day.

Renewals. § 38.2-1819's trigger is applying for a new license. We found no statutory trigger requiring existing licensees to reprint at renewal, and the Bureau's FAQ on the point is unreachable — so the accurate statement is the statutory one: fingerprints are required at the time of applying for a new license.

One last thing to get right, because it costs weeks rather than dollars. Answer the uniform application's background questions completely. An affirmative answer moves you from the Bureau's 15-business-day processing lane to 30 business days or more, and the SCC quotes 30 to 60 business days where a conviction is involved. That is a delay you can plan around. An omission is a misrepresentation, and it is a different kind of problem entirely — the point of the fingerprint check is that the Bureau will see what you did not disclose.

What It Costs

$35 to Prometric for Series 11-01, and $15 per line of authority to the Bureau — $30 for the two lines this exam earns you. That is $65 in published fees on a first-attempt pass.

Compare the routes honestly, because the saving is smaller than it first looks. Two standalone exams cost $70 in exam fees against $35 for the combined; the application fees are $30 either way, because Virginia charges per line rather than per application. The combined route saves $35, not $50. It also saves you a second trip to a test center, which for many candidates is worth more than the money.

The Fieldprint live-scan fee is mandatory, applicant-paid under § 38.2-1819, and not published by the Bureau. No figure appears on this page for that reason. Ask Fieldprint at the point of scheduling.

No pre-licensing tuition — Virginia requires no course for either of these lines, which is the single largest cost most states impose and Virginia does not.

Three ways to pay twice, all avoidable. Cancel or reschedule inside 24 hours and the exam fee is forfeit. Sit an exam unnecessarily or be found unqualified and the bulletin says neither the exam fee nor the application processing fee is refunded. And let the 183-day window lapse and § 38.2-1817 forfeits both — $65 gone, and 150 questions to sit again.

Eligibility Requirements

You must be at least 18, and you must use a Virginia address for both mailing and residence. No pre-licensing education is required for either line, and there is no experience prerequisite.

The substantive screening is the fingerprint-based criminal history check under § 38.2-1819 and the background questions on the uniform application — both covered in full in the fingerprinting section above.

Moving to Virginia with a life or health license from another state? § 38.2-1817 provides that an applicant for a resident Virginia license "who was previously licensed for the same lines of authority in the individual's home state shall not be required to complete any prelicensing examination" — if currently licensed there, or applying within 90 days of that license's cancellation and in good standing. Note what the waiver reaches: the same lines. A new line goes through the exam.

Virginia grants no professional-designation waivers. CLU, ChFC, CPCU, CIC, FLMI, LUTCF — none of them waives a Virginia exam or shortens a Virginia application. Chapter 18 Article 2 and § 38.2-1817 contain no designation-based waiver at all, which is a real departure from states like Florida and Texas. The Property & Casualty guide covers reciprocity and nonresident licensing in full.

Variable products require a separate Variable Contract line of authority, and NIPR requires a FINRA CRD number on that application — in practice this license plus Series 6 or 7 and Series 63.

Keeping Your License Active

16 credit hours per biennium, including at least 3 hours of insurance ethics (Va. Code § 38.2-1866) — and this is the guide where Virginia's counting rule pays off. Life and Annuities plus Health together count as ONE license type. Holding both lines does not double your CE, and it does not push you into the multi-category band. You owe 16 hours, the same as someone holding just one of them.

What does move you to 24 hours with a minimum of 8 credit hours in each category is holding a license from two or more categories — adding Property and Casualty, or Personal Lines, to what you have here.

Virginia gives agents latitude on the ethics hours that public adjusters do not get: for agents, a course in insurance laws and regulations applicable to Virginia may count toward the three-hour ethics requirement.

Watch the 75 percent ceiling on carrier-sponsored coursework (§ 38.2-1866(J)): no more than three-quarters of your required credits may come from courses sponsored or given by or through an insurance company or insurance agency. At 16 hours that leaves at least 4 hours that must come from elsewhere — an easy thing to overlook when your carrier's training calendar is generous.

Your license renews biennially at the end of your birth month, keyed to the odd or even parity of your birth year, at $10 per line of authority. The Property & Casualty guide owns the renewal module and covers the whole machinery: the 90-day window, the reinstatement math, the carryover rule, the exemption that was repealed in 2019, and the fact that a CE shortfall terminates every license you hold rather than just the deficient one.

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